Liao Yiwu (August 4, 1958-), born in Yanting County, Sichuan Province, is a writer and poet now based in Berlin.
During the 1989 pro-democracy movement in China, wrote a long poem entitled “The Massacre” on the day before the June 4 massacre, and later planned with his friends to make a film to commemorate the victims of June Fourth. He was prosecuted for counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement crimes and sentenced to four years in prison.
After his release from prison, Liao continued to write, publishing several books such as
The Corpse Walker and
Earthquake Insane Asylum. His books have been banned in mainland China, and he himself has been harassed by the authorities, having his home raided, he himself arrested and restricted from leaving the country.
In 2011, Liao Yiwu fled China and went into exile in Germany, and the next year won the prestigious
German Book Trade Peace Prize. He has published a number of books, some of which he was not able to publish in China and some he wrote after leaving China, including
For a Song and a Hundred Songs (recounting his experiences in prison),
God is Red (persecution of Christians in China), and recently
Wuhan (a creative nonfiction about the COVID-19 epidemic).
